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The object before the subject in English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 1 of 14 16 May 2013 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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How often are objects placed before subjects in English? Like "This I understand".
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| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 2 of 14 16 May 2013 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
No idea how often, but the more common expression would be "I understand this". You can't for instance say "The mouse the cat ate". Or even "That the cat ate", though of course "The cat ate that" is perfectly fine. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3 of 14 16 May 2013 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
I would say you need to write (or imply) a comma. This, I understand. And then it's done to emphasize. This, I understand. Now that, on the other hand, I don't. But you have to have emphasis. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Peedie Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4724 days ago 25 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 4 of 14 16 May 2013 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not true actually. You could say "The mouse (that-optional) the cat ate was pure white" and it would be 100% correct. I've had a very similar question from another Russian on this topic so I'm going to post the answer I found for him. It's actually a really good question because it's totally illogical to a native Russian speaker. The answer to your question is very, very rarely do we invert in English because a) it changes the meaning of the sentence oftentimes and b) because we so rarely invert it sounds "wrong" to our ears to put a subject at the end even if techincally it is 100% grammatically correct. 9 times out of 10 we will turn that subject into a object even if it's grammatically "wrong". See question below: The people in the attached movie clip are looking for a criminal. The guy says, "Everyone's looking for him. Mossaad`s looking, CIA, Navy intel, Interpol, us"... Why is it "us" and not "we"? Because you should be able to flip the sentence and say "the navy is looking... the CIA is looking... WE are looking..." This is the answer I found with a link to the source. When English retained cases explicitly, the subject noun and the complement noun linked by a linking verb were both in nominative cases. So, "I [Nom] am the king [Nom]". If we change "the king" into a pronoun, it should be "I am it [Nom]" in the normal word order. However, in Old English, inversion easily took place between the subject and the complement. So the sentence was often uttered like "It (=complement) am I (=subject)". This style of sentence continued to be spoken until 14 century. But partly because of degradation of case declension and partly of French influence, English changed gradually into an analytical language where it is a rule the subject comes before the complement. Consequently, in the period of Middle English, some people interpreted erroneously "It am I" as "It (=subject) am I (=complement)" and they felt "am" should be changed into "is" to make it grammatical. Thus "It is I" was created in 14 century, and this is still now deemed as a correct form by the people who want to keep traditional grammar. "It is me" first appeared in literature in 17 century. The creation of this sentence seems to come from the result some people neglected the grammatical difference between linking verbs and usual action verbs. In English the sentence using a usual action verb comprises as; subject + verb + noun in the objective case. So those people erroneously thought "It is I" should be "It is me" because, they thought, "I" must be in the objective case. What I have learned from this story is that changes in a language often occur as a result of people's ignorance (or negligence) of the grammar established by their ancestors, be it good or bad. http://www.englishforums.com/English/HeOrHimWhichIsCorrect/b bxrq/post.htm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paco Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 4278 days ago 145 posts - 251 votes Speaks: Cantonese* | Message 5 of 14 16 May 2013 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think patrickwilken meant to say "The mouse the cat ate" as a sentence is ungrammatical. Those 5 words can certainly serve as a noun phrase. As regards the OP's question: English of this structure is rare even in literature, and you are not going to hear it spoken in daily conversation, normally. When such structure is deployed, usually either the speaker/author wants to make a rhyme so desperately, or they want to put unusual emphasis on the thing being placed at the beginning of the sentence. While a prescriptive grammar will most probably insist that structure is ungrammatical, you would see examples of it in literature sometimes. Edited by Paco on 16 May 2013 at 10:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5600 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 6 of 14 16 May 2013 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you use it often, you may be Yoda:
Much to learn you still have. When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not. and so on... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 14 17 May 2013 at 1:25am | IP Logged | |||||
It's funny, as I was coming home tonight. I saw a poster for Yoda and realized that actually most of what he says is completely pertinent to this thread. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 8 of 14 17 May 2013 at 7:22am | IP Logged | |||||
This, I understand. But I wanted to know how often it was used. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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